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on Central and Western Asia |
| By: | Eunan O' Halpin; |
| Abstract: | This paper explores issues arising from the recent published inquiries into aspects of British intelligence assessment procedures on WMD threats. Drawing on the Butler and Hutton inquiries, and on interviews with former officials, it concludes that the process by which the Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was drawn into producing an intelligence assessment for publication in September 2002 was a new departure in British government. It also argues that the drafting exercise disclosed by the Hutton and Butler inquiries was, incidentally if not deliberately, one in which two fundamentally distinct processes became entangled: what was published as an unvarnished professional intelligence assessment – in essence a conventional JIC assessment for once brought immediately into the public domain - was compromised by the government’s presentational imperatives. This paper will be followed by a second reflecting on the difficulties faced by the wider international community in judging what weight to put on evidence produced by the world’s major intelligence powers to argue for particular courses of action to counter WMD proliferation, terrorism, and other threats to international security and order. Classification- |
| Keywords: | Butler Report, Hutton Inquiry, JIC, John Scarlett, SIS, Iraq and WMD |
| Date: | 2005–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp046&r=cwa |
| By: | Pnina Werbner; |
| Abstract: | In his work on a Welsh border village, Ronald Frankenberg showed how cultural performances, from football to carnival, conferred agency on local actors and framed local conflicts. The present article extends these themes. It responds to invocations by politicians and policy makers of ‘community cohesion’ and the failure of communal leadership, following riots by young South Asians in northern British towns. Against the critique of self-segregating isolationism, the article traces the historical process of Pakistani migration and settlement in Britain, to argue that the dislocations and relocations of transnational migration generate two paradoxes of culture. The first is that in order to sink roots in a new country, transnational migrants in the modern world begin by setting themselves culturally and socially apart. They form encapsulated ‘communities’. Second, that within such communities culture can be conceived of as conflictual, open, hybridising and fluid, while nevertheless having a sentimental and morally compelling force. This stems from the fact, I propose, that culture is embodied in ritual and social exchange and performance, conferring agency and empowering different social actors: religious and secular, men, women and youth. Hence, against both defenders and critics of multiculturalism as a political and philosophical theory of social justice, the final part of the article argues for the need to theorise multiculturalism in history. In this view, rather than being fixed by liberal or socialist universal philosophical principles, multicultural citizenship must be grasped as changing and dialogical, inventive and responsive, a negotiated political order. The British Muslim diasporic struggle for recognition in the context of local racism and world international crises exemplifies this process. Classification- |
| Date: | 2005–04–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp048&r=cwa |
| By: | SK Mishra (North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India); JW Lyngskor (North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we report our findings as to the extent of poverty among the casual labourers of Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya, India. Two views of poverty have been considered; first at the per capita (per month) income level and the second at the nutritional level. Nutritional level has been defined in terms of calorie, carbohydrate, protein and fat intakes of the casual labourer households. We find that income elasticites of calorie availability and carbohydrate availability move close to each other. Income elasticities of protein are always higher than carbohydrate (and calorie). Elasticities of fat are initially larger than others, but with an increase in per capita income they slide down others. At small income levels relatively high-fat-low-protein articles are consumed while with an increase in income relatively low- fat-high-protein articles are consumed. The contribution of carbohydrates to calorie intake decreases with an increase in per capita income. Our findings do not corroborate Behrman and Deolalikar (1987), who showed that the income elasticity of calorie intake was quite low, and not significantly different from zero in statistical terms. If the income elasticity were close to zero, its implication is that improvement in the income of the poor will have little impact on the extent of malnutrition. Then the developmental policies intended to improve nutrition will have to use policy instruments which attack malnutrition directly rather than relying simply on raising income. But that is not the case as shown by our study. However, our findings support Strauss and Thomas (1990), Ravallion (1990). Bouis and Haddad (1992), and Subramanian and Deaton (1996), who find that income elasticities of energy component of food, although small, are yet significantly different from and much larger than zero. Subramanian and Deaton (1996), based on the National Sample Survey data, estimated the expenditure elasticity of calorie intake to lie in the range of 0.3-0.5 and in any case statistically different from zero. In our study, we find that income elasticities of calorie availability (to casual labourers in Shillong) are close to 0.4, which corroborate Subramanian and Deaton. We also find that not only calories, but other nutritional ingredients of food such as carbohydrate, protein and fat availabilities (intakes) also have income elasticities significantly larger than zero and, therefore, raising income to Rs. 800 (per capita per month) or so we may overcome the mal-nutrition problem among the poor. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Shillong, Meghalaya, India, Nutritional intakes, carbohydrate, protein, fat, calorie, income elasticity, malnutrition |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 Q12 Q15 |
| Date: | 2005–04–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0504006&r=cwa |
| By: | SK Mishra (Department of Economics, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong India); Prasen Daimari (Department of Economics, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong India) |
| Abstract: | Globalization is a deliberate decision to open up a national economy to the forces of product, factor and money markets, followed by a sequence of requisite policies and actions. The Indian economy shed off its 40- year long license and quota regime and went in for globalization in the early 1990’s. However, globalization of the Indian Economy has been defensive, based on the decadence within and the pressure from without. The rural segment of the Indian economy, in particular, lacks in the social spirit and prowess, so much needed to benefit from globalization. Acute poverty is the major structural reality that makes the rural areas of India impermeable to the effects of globalization. To exploit the possibilities and opportunities that globalization has opened up, one has to produce, which in turn requires investible funds, infrastructure and links to the market. Poverty cripples the very foundations of these possibilities. Therefore, under the prevailing conditions, one cannot expect the rural areas to be much permeable to the effects of globalization. This study is based on the primary data collected from seven villages of Assam. Our findings show that the globalization effects have not entered into the rural areas of Assam in any significant sense. |
| Keywords: | Assam, Udalguri, India, Rural Economy, globalization, inequality, food security, poverty |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 Q12 Q15 |
| Date: | 2005–04–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wpa:wuwpur:0504007&r=cwa |